- The death rate in the U.S. rose last year for the first time since 2005
- There were 729.5 deaths per 100,000 people in 2015, up from 723.2 in 2014
- It’s too early to say, but experts say the rare increase could be connected to a rise in drug overdoses among white working class Americans
- Cases of suicides and Alzheimer’s disease are also on the rise
Ashley Collman For Dailymail.com
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For the first time in a decade, the U.S. mortality rate has increased, worrying experts about the state of American health.
In 2015, the death rate rose to 729.5 deaths per 100,000 people, according to data released by the National Center for Health Statistics on Wednesday. That’s up from 723.2 deaths in 2014.
While that may not seen like a very big difference, the national mortality rate has been on a steady decline for years so it’s unusual that it would increase at all.
The last time it increased was in 2005, during a particularly bad flu season. Before that, the rate increased by a tiny margin in 1999 and also in 1993, when the country was dealing with another bad flu season and the AIDs epidemic.
The national mortality rate went up in 2015 for the first time in a decade, according to data released by the National Center for Health Statistics on Wednesday
While more data is needed to pinpoint what exactly led to the rare rise in the mortality rate, early analysis suggests that an increase in cases of suicide, drug overdose and Alzheimer’s disease are to blame.
But more data will be necessary, broken down by race and other factors, to discover what went wrong in 2015.
One area that researchers will be looking into is whether the drug overdose epidemic among white working class Americans may have contributed to the national mortality rate increase.
‘This is probably heavily influenced by whites,’ Sam Harper, an epidemiologist at McGill University in Montreal, told the New York Times. ‘It does sort of fit together.’
Early analysis shows that the rise may be due to an increase in drug overdoses, suicides and cases of Alzheimer’s disease. Above, the rate of drug overdose from the first quarter of 2014 to the second quarter of 2015
The rise in Alzheimer’s disease may also be due to better recording of the disease on death certificates
Researchers say it’s still too early to know for sure what caused the rare increase in the mortality rate
Last year, a paper was released showing a rise in deaths among middle-aged white Americans, especially those with only a high school education.
But no connection can be made yet for this year since drug overdose numbers for the second half of 2015 have yet to be released.
So far though, drug overdoses appeared to be on the rise in 2015. For the second quarter of 2014, the drug overdose rate was 14.2 and for the same quarter in 2015, it raised to 15.2.
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Also on the rise are suicides and Alzheimer’s disease. Suicides rose 13.1 in the third quarter of 2015 from 12.7 in the same quarter of 2014. Alzheimer’s disease rose to 29.2 in 2015 compared with 25.4 in 2014. However, researchers say part of the reason the Alzheimer’s rate increased was due to more precise reporting of Alzheimer’s on death certificates.
While these three factors were increasing, heart disease – which has been on a slow decline – stayed the same this year. Heart disease and cancer are by far the largest killers of Americans.
While the data appears troubling, other experts say it may be too early to worry.
‘There’s no smoking gun here,’ Farida Ahmad, mortality surveillance lead for the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics told the Washington Post. ‘It’s something that we’re going to be looking into and watching to see if it holds for 2016. It could be that it’s just a blip as it was 10 years ago.’
Heart disease has been lowering every year, but this year it flattened out. Heart disease and cancer are the two biggest killers of Americans
Cancer rates also leveled out in 2015. The last time the death rate increased was in 2005, a particularly bad year for the flu
Flags adorn every headstone on Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery, May 30, 2016
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